- To glad the thirsty soil on which, arrang’d,
- The gemmy summits of the Cane await [395]
- Thy Negroe-train, (in linen lightly wrapt,)1
- Who now that painted Iris2 girds the sky,
- (Aerial arch, which Fancy loves to stride!)
-
Disperse, all-jocund, o’er the long-hoed land.
- THE bundles some untie; the withered leaves, [400]
- Others strip artful off, and careful lay,
- Twice one junk, distant in the amplest bed:
- O’er these, with hasty hoe, some lightly spread
- The mounded interval; and smooth the trench:
- Well-pleas’d, the master-swain reviews their toil; [405]
- And rolls, in fancy, many a full-fraught cask.
- So, when the shield was forg’d for Peleus’ Son;3
- The swarthy Cyclops4 shar’d the important task:
- With bellows, some reviv’d the seeds of fire;
- Some, gold, and brass, and steel, together fus’d [410]
- In the vast furnace; while a chosen few,
- In equal measures lifting their bare arms,
- Inform the mass; and, hissing in the wave,
- Temper the glowing orb: their fire beholds,
- Amaz’d, the wonders of his fusile art. [415]
-
The enslaved generally were provided with a coarse brown linen known as osnaburg. ↩︎
-
In Greco-Roman mythology, Iris was the daughter of the Titan Thaumas and the Oceanid Electra; she is sometimes cited as the wife of Zephyrus, the west wind. Her name in Greek means rainbow. The goddess Juno took her to serve as her handmaid. ↩︎
-
Peleus’ son is Achilles. In Book 18 of the Iliad, the god Hephaestus forges an elaborate shield for Achilles to replace the armor that was lost when Hector killed Patroclus. ↩︎
-
In Greek mythology, one of a race of one-eyed giants who forged thunderbolts for Zeus. ↩︎